Alison Gordon was the first female baseball beat writer who covered the Toronto Blue Jays from 1979-1984. Prior to achieving such a milestone, she was "highly regarded" as a humorist and comedy writer. She passed away on Thursday at the age of 72.
The Blue Jays joined Major League Baseball in 1977 and didn't earn their first playoff berth until 1985. Gordon began covering the team for the Toronto Star in 1979 when they finished 53-109 and up until they started to turn the ship around in 1984 with a 89-73 campaign. They reached the ALCS in 1985, a year after Gordon left the paper because the "travel wore her out and she was bored," according to Brendan Kennedy of the Toronto Star.
Gordon was known for her sense of humor, relentlessness and thick skin - all characteristics needed as a female covering a losing professional baseball team.
"You had to have a sense of humour to cover the Blue Jays," she told the Toronto Star in 1984, "at least in the first few years."
"She was relentless," said outfielder Lloyd Moseby, who played for the team from 1980-1989, via Kennedy. "A lot of women that are in the profession right now should be very thankful for what Alison did and what she went through. She took a beating from the guys. She was a pioneer for sure."
Moseby recalled four or five teammates of his that "rallied around" to keep Gordon out of the clubhouse, but he said she didn't "give a damn." A year before Gordon became the Jays' beat writer, a lawsuit filed by Sports Illustrated reporter Melissa Ludtke forced Major League Baseball to lift the ban that kept women out of the league's clubhouses. This paved the way for Gordon, who became the first female beat writer as well as the first female admitted into the Baseball Writers Association of America.
Gordon wrote a memoir of her time covering the Blue Jays and completed two baseball-themed murder mystery novels titled Dead Pull Hitter and Safe at Home after leaving the Toronto Star.
According to Kennedy, the 72-year-old Gordon underwent surgery for a lung condition this past Monday and unexpectedly passed away yesterday. She will be missed by her colleagues and others in the baseball world.
